Manoj Tiwari, Nityanand Rai appointed BJP's Delhi and Bihar unit presidents

BJP chief Amit Shah on Wednesday appointed party MPs Manoj Tiwari and Nityanand Rai as party's Delhi and Bihar unit presidents respectively.

While Tiwari replaces Satish Upadhyay, Rai replaces Mangal Pandey. Their tenures were long over and new appointments were awaited for the past few months.

Rai is a Yadav, a community over which RJD chief Lalu Prasad has a strong hold.

His appointment is seen as an effort by the BJP to go beyond the upper castes, its traditional voters, and reach out to the OBCs in the caste-conscious state where it lost to JDU-RJD combine in the last assembly polls.